currency

Expert advice: Sell American dollars. Buy gold, art and jewelry

by Lee on July 18, 2011 17:33 pm · 1 comment

Some critics say we’re like the Joe Bfstplk character in the old L’il Abner comic strip. Joe walked around with his own personal dark cloud hanging over his head.

We defend ourselves by saying, “You don’t understand. It’s probably worse than we than we think and we think it’s pretty damn bad.” Now it appears that a big-time Wall Street mover and shaker is singing our song:

There may be another round of quantitative easing in the U.S. and Europe remains volatile. What’s an investor to do? Get into gold, art and jewelry, Scott Minerd, chief strategist at Guggenheim Partners, told CNBC Wednesday.

“We’re in a ‘beggar thy neighbor’ era. Paper money is garbage at the end,” he said. “It’s a matter of relative values, about which garbage do you own.”
There’s gold, of course, but “I don’t want to get labeled as a gold bug,” Minerd said. “I’m in favor of any asset class which is a store of value, which gets you away from currency risks,” and that would include art, collectibles and diamonds. Over his long-term horizon, “all of these noncurrency-related assets are probably superior investments than looking at financial assets.”

Watch the entire interview. When Wall Streeters begin agreeing with the doom and gloomers at EconomicCollapse.net, it’s a sure sign that the apocolypse is nigh.


Source: CNBC

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Which currencies outperformed gold in the first half of 2011?

by Lee on July 13, 2011 13:01 pm · 2 comments

Let’s start off by stating the obvious: The United States dollar will not be found on this list. It’s performance could be described in uniquely American terminology – it’s lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.

On the other hand, GoldSilver.com put together a very interesting list of currencies that outperformed gold in the first half of 2011. This is, of course, no indication that they’ll continue to outperform the precious metal, but still, it’s an interesting exercise.

Imagine the look of horror that would have crossed your face is your investment advisor has six months ago recommended a mix of Moroccan Dirhams, Albanian Lekes, Mauritian Rupees, CFP Francs and Hungarian Florints.

Here’s the list of currencies that out-appreciated gold.

[click to continue…]

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How to survive and thrive when the U.S. dollar collapses

by Lee on June 27, 2011 1:00 am · Comments/Link

Chuck Butler, President of Everbank World Markets, spoke at his company’s Global Currency Expo last month. We were both impressed and depressed by his remarks, but that’s just us.

The pound sterling was the world’s reserve currency until World War II. That’s when “we became the reserve currency by financing England because they couldn’t pay their debts and had diluted their currency…” Butler said. They needed assistance from other countries to service their debt and had overextended their military.”

It doesn’t take a currency wizard to note the eerie parallels in today’s world.

China started signing swap agreements in 2009. They’ve already done deals with much of Asia, the European Union, Canada, Russia, Brazil, Belarus and Argentina. Japan and Korea are coming on board soon. Rumor has it that they’re in negotiations with the oil-producing Arab nations.

What does this mean for the United States dollar. Nothing good. “The U.S. dollar will lose its reserve currency status sometime between 2014 and 2020,” Butler said. “There will be no trumpet; it will just happen.”

He thinks it’s inevitable that the dollar will lose its reserve status. So how do you protect your portfolio from the inevitable? According to Butler, “94% of investment return is based on the asset-class selection, and a low covariance with other assets.” Translation: Diversify out of U.S. dollars. “You wouldn’t buy just one stock,” Butler said, “so why would you own just one currency?”

He recommends the renminbi, the Singapore dollar, the Norwegian krone, and the Swedish krona.

We like the way he thinks.

Source: Lew Rockwell

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Is the U.S. dollar is even shakier than the Euro?

by Lee on May 16, 2011 6:57 am · Comments/Link

We’ve been assured by all the talking heads that the Euro is the world’s sickest currency. “The dollar’s weak,” they tell us, “but that Euro, why, it’s ready to totally disintegrate.”

Axel Merk is president and chief investment officer of Merk Investments and he says that point of view is nonsense, exactly 180 degrees out of phase.

We have to admit that Merk makes a certain amount of sense:

[Click to hear what Axel Merk has to say...]

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Congratulations on your 10% Stock Gain. Big Deal.

by Mark on January 1, 2011 10:40 am · Comments/Link

Feeling good about the 10% the U.S. stock market gained in 2010? Forget about it. Or as Peter Schiff says in this video, big deal. Against other currencies, metals and commodities, you lost ground.

While we’re in Peter Schiff mode, here’s a debate he was in yesterday on some of the same subjects, and offers predictions for 2011:

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“Fed’s QE2 is in alignment with George Soros’s agenda to destroy global capitalism.”

by Mark on November 10, 2010 9:31 am · Comments/Link

George SorosAny non-Koolaid drinking American who is paying attention, knows that socialist, anti-American George Soros is out to destroy capitalism, and capitalism’s headquarters, the United States. Financier of many worldwide far left, socialist and marxist groups, he’s extremely busy with his hands in suspect organizations around the world.

Here’s what The Wizards of Wall Street author, Zubi Diamond, has to say about Soros and the Fed’s Quantitative Easing program, as written up in Fox News:

Another financial expert is expressing his deep disgust with the Federal Reserve’s decision to print more money and buy more U.S. debt, saying it is a sign that the U.S. capitalist system is moving closer to collapse.

“This is the type of stuff we accused the communist and socialist governments of doing—interfering in free markets through currency manipulation,” declared Zubi Diamond, author of The Wizards of Wall Street. “What the Fed is doing is not good for free market capitalism and it is not good for America.”

In an interview with Accuracy in Media, Diamond went on to say, “The Fed is following the economic models of Third World countries by printing more money and devaluing their currencies. If you keep doing what Third World economies do, eventually you will become a Third World economy.”

The Fed’s new action, labeled “quantitative easing” or QE2, follows a first attempt at “QE,” known as QE1. QE means that the Federal Reserve is printing more money and buying more government debt. In total, according to Investor’s Business Daily, “the Fed will have created $2.5 trillion out of the blue.”

Diamond said the result of the Fed’s policy will be to “increase the debt, devalue our currency and create a bigger problem that won’t solve the crisis.” Eventually, America could “collapse under its own weight of massive debt,” he warned.

The QE2 “will devalue the dollar and lead to higher commodity prices, asset and price inflation. It may even lead to the end of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency,” Diamond predicted. He noted that Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner floated the idea of the dollar losing its status as the world’s reserve currency, “only to backpedal from it when it raised some eyebrows.”

“What is most troubling to me about this,” Diamond added, “is that the Fed’s QE2 is in alignment with George Soros’s agenda to destroy global capitalism.” The decline of the dollar “is what George Soros wants and what he has proposed in the past,” he noted.

Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator who finances various leftist and Marxist groups, including Media Matters, has made his fortune by betting on the collapse of national economies and currencies. He was convicted of insider trading in France.

Source: Fox News

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China Central Bank: “absurd” that the dollar remains a reserve currency

by Mark on November 9, 2010 7:26 am · Comments/Link

earth americaChina Central Bank’s advisor Li Daokui has a good point, and we don’t think he’s the only one thinking this. Forget history, and simply take a look at the current (and future) condition of the once fiscally responsible United States of America and tell me if you would pick the U.S. Dollar to be the world’s reserve currency. Of course you wouldn’t.

Daokui illustrates this point by asking, if you were a visitor from outer space, what would you make of this?

From Bloomberg:

Li Daokui, an academic adviser to China’s central bank, said it could be seen as “absurd” that the dollar remains a reserve currency after the financial crisis.

To a visitor from outer space, it would seem “absurd” that the dollar holds that role, given problems in U.S. financial regulation and the country’s economic difficulties, Li said at a forum in Beijing. The same assessment could be made of the nation’s ability to keep issuing currency according to its own needs, he said.

Just how much longer will the United States be able to maintain its stature in the world?

Source: Bloomberg

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Gold Will Outlive the Dollar Slaughter

by Mark on October 29, 2010 7:43 am · 1 comment

Gold BullionYesterday, John Hathaway, a managing director of Tocqueville Asset Management LP in New York, wrote a commentary on the coming dollar slaughter and the coming value of gold.

He concludes with the point that gold is not in a bubble now, as so many suggest. We couldn’t agree more. We’ve seen bubbles and this is no bubble. At least it is nowhere near the end of the bubble. The price of gold is merely mirroring the declining value of the dollar, and the expectation (and rightly so) that paper money will deteriorate considerably more, and faster than many believe.

John’s article, Gold Will Outlive Dollar Once Slaughter Comes: John Hathaway:

[Click to read the great article...]

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Jim Rogers: “A trade war could be the end of all of us.”

by Mark on October 22, 2010 6:49 am · Comments/Link

Jim Rogers was on Bloomberg yesterday to discuss currencies primarily, and in particular the Chinese Yuan. The entire interview is well worth a listen, as he comments on currencies, China, gold, silver, rare earth elements and inflation. But, for us the biggest take-away is what he has to say about the end result of a currency war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHZ3oCNkfLw

“A trade war could be the end of all of us. In the 1930′s we had a trade war, it had led to the Great Depression, and ultimately to the second world war. No one has ever, ever won a trade war, everyone loses a trade war. If the trade war gets worse, that’s the end of the game. The world economy is going to be in trouble for a long time to come. Unfortunately, most politicians have not read their history or their economics and don’t know the consequences of a trade war.”

Jim Rogers always tells it like it is.

He’s right about the politicians not following history. You can bet that these idiots will lead us to disaster, whether it’s through currency wars or something else.

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